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richard hodkinson

@richardhod.bsky.social
259 followers 376 following 376 posts

Social scientist, political philosopher, street luge racer (retd.), writer, tech executor, musician, serious jester Climate change is here and we need to act now.

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Reposted by richard hodkinson
Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
We’ve been talking about this for years. None of these far-right movements are organic.
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Massimo (mirror) @rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Anthony Howe is a kinetic sculptor who creates wind-driven sculptures resembling pulsing, alien creatures and vortices. This one is in downtown Montreal. Original post
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richard hodkinson @richardhod.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
American democracy is dying. What are you going to do to revive it? If you are there, you can act. Figure out what it is that you can do the positively helps your institutions and your community represents truthfully the will of the people, and actively and strongly stop the right wing from stealing
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Joni Askola @joniaskola.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
The harm caused by Elon Musk is not talked about enough. His DOGE-led cuts to USAID are projected to kill millions of people. That is more than all post-WW2 wars the US has been involved in combined. And he didn't even save money. He needs to be held accountable
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Ryan Broderick @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
I read thousands of pages of Epstein files this weekend trying to understand what he wanted out of his meeting with 4chan's Christopher Poole. Here's everything we know about Epstein's plans to dismantle the internet and, eventually, democracy. www.garbageday.email/p/here-s-how...
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RV @rv-enigma.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Covid-19 am 17.9.25: heute kaum↗️ R_Berichte (korr): ↘️1,10 R_Meldungen (adj): ↘️1,11 R_Hospitalisierung: 1,08-1,12 Inkl. DZF 175 [bzw. 140]: Fälle (7T-M): ➡️67.000 [53.000] Inzidenz: 560 [450] (465 [370]) Verdopplungszeit: ~27 Tage Infiziert: 1 von ~125 [160]
Die Grafik zeigt oben die 7T-Mittel der Fallmeldungen nach Berichtsdatum (ohne Nachmeldungen für mehr als 30 Tage zurück liegende Daten und um geschätzte fehlende/nachgemeldete Daten für Feiertage korrigiert) sowie die Fallzahl nach Meldedatum, adjustiert mit einem Nowcast der erwarteten Nachmeldungen. Außerdem ist die aus der NICHT NORMALISIERTEN Abwasser-Viruslast berechnete Inzidenz sowie der aktuelle Dunkelzifferfaktor und die Inzidenz (nach Berichtsdatum) inkl. DZF aufgetragen. 

Im unteren Bereich stehen gestrichelt R-Werte (d.h. geglättete 4-Tages-Änderungen):
Fälle nach Berichts- und Meldedatum, Viruslast (AMELAG LOESS) und ITS-Belegung.

Die verschiedenen Datenquellen (AMELAG nicht normalisiert) ergeben folgendes Bild:
Mittelfristig hatten wir ab Juni ein Plateau mit einer mittelhohen Inzidenz von 140-170; R schwankte um 1,0. Seit August steigen die Infektionen wieder stark (R>1,1). Die Hospitalisierung steigt ähnlich. Zuletzt steigt auch ITS stark an.Die Grafik zeigt oben die 7T-Mittel der Fallmeldungen nach Berichtsdatum (ohne Nachmeldungen für mehr als 30 Tage zurück liegende Daten und um geschätzte Daten für Feiertage korrigiert) sowie die Fallzahl nach Meldedatum, adjustiert mit einem Nowcast der Nachmeldungen. Außerdem ist die aus der NORMALISIERTEN Abwasser-Viruslast berechnete Inzidenz sowie der aktuelle Dunkelzifferfaktor und die Inzidenz (nach Berichtsdatum) inkl. DZF (ab 17.8. bei 150 fixiert) aufgetragen. 

Im unteren Bereich stehen gestrichelt R-Werte (d.h. geglättete 4-Tages-Änderungen):
Fälle nach Berichts- und Meldedatum, Viruslast (AMELAG zentriertes 5W-Mittel) und ITS-Belegung.

Die verschiedenen Datenquellen (AMELAG normalisiert) ergeben folgendes Bild:
Mittelfristig hatten wir ab Juni ein Plateau mit einer mittelhohen Inzidenz von 140-170; R schwankte um 1,0. Seit Mitte Juli steigen die Infektionen wieder stark (R~1,1). Die Hospitalisierung steigt ähnlich. Zuletzt steigt auch ITS stark an.
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
JD Vance said he doesn’t care if the US commits war crimes. Did it make the news? Donald Trump said he’s declaring war on Chicago. Did it make the news? Executive agencies keep posting Nazi blood-and-soil propaganda. Did it make the news?
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
He's gonna pardon Ghislaine and she's gonna say under oath Michelle Obama did January 6th.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
America in a nutshell.
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richard hodkinson @richardhod.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
This is dynamite. Nobody is talking about this really, they don't want to believe it. This is flagged up as a potential problem in 2006. Now we have people who overtly want to cheat of course it happened
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Maryanne Chisholm 🌊 💙 @maryannechisholm.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
🗳️ 🚨 What If This Election Wasn’t Counted Fairly or Correctly? A Single Lawsuit Might Change Everything. In Rockland County, NY, a lawsuit filed by SMART Elections has exposed something deeply disturbing: multiple voters have sworn they voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election 1/
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21/07/2025
This is an epic campaign video
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
I remember commissioning this story from my friend @baxterholmes.bsky.social 11 whole years ago. It is not a complex decision when you know any history at all. And now Trump is trying basically criminalize being against this racism. www.esquire.com/news-politic...
A 'Redskin' Is the Scalped Head of a Native American, Sold, Like a Pelt, for Cash
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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
come on man lmao
Mehdi Hassan debating a preposterous looking man
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richard hodkinson @richardhod.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
@jennijuvonen.bsky.social makes amazing cake!
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
So am I reading this court decision correctly? We now have 50 micronations with their own laws interpreting the U.S. Constitution wholly separate from one another? But there's one guy with private law enforcement who is immune from all punishment who can do whatever he wants in those 50 states?
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David S. Cohen @dsc250.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
The left better start figuring out how to weaponize today's decision rather than just (rightfully) criticizing it. - Go back into Judge Kaczmaryk's court to dissolve all of his nationwide orders. - Pass gun bans and insist any order applies only to plaintiffs.
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Glennyrodge @glennyrodge.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
English person: did you hear about the irishman who... Irish person: yeah, you were literally tricked by a bus
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umsonst.bsky.social @umsonst.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Just the collapse of the Amazon able to crash the terrestrial carbon sink which will now fast turn into a source... One more warming jump needed... #climate #earth
theguardian.com
‘We are perilously close to the point of no return’: climate scientist on Amazon rainforest’s future
Carlos Nobre, who has fought for decades to save the rainforest, says up to 70% of it could be lost if a tipping point is reached
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Inexplicably very on sale today, thanks @raygunsite.com.
raygunsite.com
The Onion: Right v Wrong
The Onion: The Supreme Court Overturns 'Right v. Wrong.' RAYGUN & The Onion have collaborated on never-before-made Onion product for a limited time. A Portion of All RAYGUN Sales Raise Money For O...
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SMBC Comics @smbccomics.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Once we have robotic monks, we can stop worrying about transcendence and focus on productivity. COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/matter PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm... STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com
Part 1 of a 7-panel SMBC comic update showing a man discussing his worries regarding AI with a robot monk.Part 2 of a 7-panel SMBC comic update showing a man discussing his worries regarding AI with a robot monk.
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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 27/06/2025
Lander: "It's just gross, racist bigotry. Meanwhile he's running an optimistic, upbeat campaign for a NY where everybody belongs, and I feel proud as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in NYC to be supporting somebody who would be the first Muslim mayor—what could be more NYC than that?"
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 27/06/2025
"For the child born this summer in Texas, whose parents receive no documents, whose name never appears in any system, and who grows up asking why she can’t go on field trips, apply for scholarships, or open a bank account, the consequences are not legal theory. They are her life."
slate.com
The United States Is About to Embark on a Terrifying Experiment in Mass Statelessness
This scenario, until recently, might have read like a dystopian projection. But after the court’s decision on Friday, it is no longer hypothetical.
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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Lander is an eminently qualified candidate who could have seen the failure of his won campaign as a reason to be embittered against Mamdani (as, ahem, others did) but instead is pivoting to united the left-liberal vote and dampen Cuomo’s chances. Profoundly decent, stand up thing to do.
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Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
4-year-old Bakersfield girl facing deportation could die within days of losing medical care - Los Angeles Times Don’t ever tell me that Christians support the GOP. There is nothing Christian or Christ-like about this. Just plain old cruelty and callousness:
latimes.com
4-year-old Bakersfield girl facing deportation could die within days of losing medical care
In 2023, a Mexican girl, 4, was allowed U.S. entry for lifesaving medical care. She and her parents, who live in Bakersfield, have been told they must leave.
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Matt Ortega @mattortega.com · 27/05/2025
“These men made our lives possible. They were impelled to risk all by a sense of obligation to the future. We possess a reciprocal obligation to the past. We must not squander what they bequeathed to us.”
nytimes.com
Opinion | We Are Not Being Asked to Run Into Cannon Fire. We Just Need to Speak Up.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
“The COIN-operated Presidency” 🤡 @nytimes.com @karaswisher.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/u...
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Pyperkub @pyperkub.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
As a reminder, Page and Brin (who founded google) wrote an an entire paper about how advertising based search would suck at search! infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/g...
snip from paper -  It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone
ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying advertisers. For this
type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising
funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the
consumers.
Since it is very difficult even for experts to evaluate search engines, search engine bias is particularly
insidious. A good example was OpenText, which was reported to be selling companies the right to be
listed at the top of the search results for particular queries [Marchiori 97]. This type of bias is much
more insidious than advertising, because it is not clear who "deserves" to be there, and who is willing to
pay money to be listed. This business model resulted in an uproar, and OpenText has ceased to be a
viable search engine.
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Alex Klotz @aklotz.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
I had a student who is WORKING ON AN ORIGINAL RESEARCH PROJECT tell me that Google's AI answer said her results were wrong.
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John Stuart Thrill @jsthrill.modphi.com · 20/05/2025
i keep seeing people say that LLMs are good at search. NO. WRONG. You have just forgotten how good search used to be. Google broke it's own flagship product, and so you are accepting a demented chatbot's half baked gishgallop because we no longer have functional web search.
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Relentless @relentlesspursuit.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Spread the word!
I hear June 14th is now officially going to be Obama appreciation day.  Spread the word.
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TheDesk.net @thedesk.net · 19/05/2025
Scoop: CBS News pulled a "60 Minutes" segment that focused on job losses at the Internal Revenue Service hours before it was scheduled to air, replacing it with a feature story on Cajun music. Story: www.msn.com/en-us/news/o...
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 02/05/2025
@azcir.org and @propublica.org also found that at least 40 Indigenous residents of sober living homes and treatment facilities in the Phoenix area died as the state fumbled its response. (Published. January 27)
propublica.org
Dozens of People Died in Arizona Sober Living Homes as State Officials Fumbled Medicaid Fraud Response
Arizona officials acknowledged that a fraud scheme targeting Indigenous people with addictions cost taxpayers $2.5 billion. But they haven’t accounted publicly for the number of deaths tied to the sch...
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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
There are times when a decent person would quit rather than preside over a sick farce. This is one of those times.
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Kara Swisher @karaswisher.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Resistance is NOT futile
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 22/04/2025
Happy Earth Day, friends. Our homeworld, seen by the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968.
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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
A US citizen with a learning disability who has just suffered a medical emergency asks a CBP officer for directions outside the emergency room. He ends up detained in an icebox for ten days and has the assistant secretary of DHS lying about him to the public at large. popular.info/p/us-citizen...
Tricia McLaughlin &
@TriciaOhio
0...
The narrative being pushed about Jose Hermosillo is false. On April 8, Hermosillo approached Border Patrol in Tucson and stated he had entered the U.S. illegally through Nogales. He said he wanted to turn himself in and completed a sworn statement identifying as a Mexican citizen who had entered unlawfully.
He was processed and appeared in court on April 11. Afterward, he was held by the U.S. Marshals in Florence, AZ. A few days later, his family presented documents showing U.S. citizenship. The charges were dismissed, and he was released to his family.
This arrest was the direct result of Hermosillo's own actions and statements.In an interview with Popular Information, his first with any media outlet, Hermosillo said DHS'.
's account was false.
According to Hermosillo, he was visiting his girlfriend's family in Tucson from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Several hours before his arrest, Hermosillo was transported to a hospital in Tucson by ambulance after suffering from a seizure. He has a New Mexico state ID, but did not take it with him during the medical emergency.
After being released from the hospital following treatment, Hermosillo did not know how to return to where he was staying.
He approached the Border Patrol officer because he was looking for someone to help him. "I saw a car, and I askled] him for help," Hermosillo said. He told the officer that he was staying in Tucson."You"
re not from here. Do you have your
papers?" the officer said, according to Hermosillo. When the officer asked where he was from, Hermosillo said he told the officer,
"New Mexico." The officer then accused Hermosillo of lying. "Don't make me lout] like [I'm] stupid," the officer said. "I know you're from Mexico." After that, Hermosillo said, he was arrested.
Hermosillo said that he never told the officer that he was born in Mexico, was a citizen of Mexico, or entered the country illegally. And he would not have said those things because they are not true. He signed the transcript released by DHS because the officer ordered him to "sign everything." But Hermosillo did not read it, because he cannot read.
According to Hermosillo's girlfriend, Grace Hernandez, Hermosillo has learning disabilities and can only write his name.
Hermosillo said he did not graduate from high school and dropped out after the 10th grade.The officer also signed the document, which said Hermosillo "read" the document or had
it read to him. But Hermosillo said no one read him the document.
Other documents created by the officer have inaccuracies. For example, the criminal complaint says that Hermosillo was detained
"at or near Nogales, Arizona." But Hermosillo was detained in Tuscon, which is more than 70 miles from Nogales. John Mennell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Border Patrol, said that it was an "unintentional" error.
Hermosillo said he was detained with about
15 other men in a cell at the Florence Correctional Center. He was served only cold food. He said he contracted the flu because
"they have it cold in there and everybody's getting sick." Hermosillo said he requested medicine but was not provided with any.
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Jasmine 🌌🔭 @astrojaz.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
there is no plan(et) b.
Earth appears as a hemisphere against the blackness of space.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23/04/2025
Jake Tapper: "One 60 Minutes source tells me, 'The lawsuit was baseless. Bill Owens wouldn't apologize. He wouldn't bend. He fought for the broadcast and for independent journalism and that cost him his job. It's shameful.'"
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Wikipedia @wikipedia.org · 22/04/2025
Earth Day is a reminder that we only have one planet. Sometimes, it takes seeing Earth from space to truly grasp how precious it is. 🧵⬇️ (1/4)
A view of Earth rising above the Moon's horizon, taken from space. The Moon's barren, gray surface stretches across the lower portion of the image, while Earth appears as a small, vibrant blue-and-white sphere against the vast blackness of space.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
I don't think it gets more Second Gilded Age than this.
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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
This is the right thing to do, and it’s a profound shame that he had to do it. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/b...
By Michael M. Grynbaum
Michael Grynbaum reports on media and politics.
April 22, 2025 Updated 1:26 p.m. ET
CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of
"60 Minutes," Bill Owens, said that he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program because he had lost his journalistic independence.
In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens
— only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history - told his staff in a memo that "over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for '60 Minutes, right for the audience."
"So, having defended this show - and what we stand for - from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward," he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times.
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Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Previous to the FDA, folks would put chalk and plaster of Paris in milk to make it appear white. They could also add formaldehyde to cover the smell and taste of spoiled milk.
A screenshot of a Reuters article stating that the US FDA suspended milk quality test workforce cuts.
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Alp Beck @alpbeck.com · 19/04/2025
Before I go into today's dystopian nightmare, let's take a minute to bring down your blood pressure. Here is one of my favorite creatures, the #RedPanda. Enjoy. #nature #animals
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NPR @npr.org · 21/04/2025
Workers who track data on car crashes, drownings, traumatic brain injury, falls in the elderly, and other perils lost their jobs. Advocates worry life-saving work will stop.
npr.org
With CDC injury prevention team gutted, 'we will not know what is killing us'
Workers who track data on car crashes, drownings, traumatic brain injury, falls in the elderly, and other perils lost their jobs. Advocates worry life-saving work will stop.
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QuoProQuid @quoproquid.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
there's a blog post from 2005 from cryptologist Bruce Schneier that looks at the security measures built into the papal conclave and its resilience to subversion and the assessment is that the process is near-impossible to actually "hack" turns out a system developed over millennia is pretty robust
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HELL Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 21/04/2025
Black Bag was so fun. Go see Black Bag!
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Bruno J. Navarro @brunojnavarro.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Deputies are stopping Hispanic drivers for minor, unprovable traffic violations like veering left of center, then handing them over to Border Patrol agents who are sometimes already at the scene, the
Syracuse.com investigation shows.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
theonion.com/historians-q...
From The Onion:

Historians: Quibbling Over Exact Definition Of Concentration Camp Sign Of Healthy Society
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